


You only get what you grieve

by llwydion



Series: straight faced with misery (sw and pacific rim au) [1]
Category: Pacific Rim (Movies), Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
Genre: AU, Crossover, Gen, if that wasn't obvious enough, jaeger names are really hard to come up with sometimes, playing fast and loose with canon timing, the working title of this was "because can you imagine the angst", warning: angst incoming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-12
Updated: 2018-04-12
Packaged: 2019-04-21 21:21:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14293713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/llwydion/pseuds/llwydion
Summary: Obi-Wan Kenobi is thirteen when the kaiju first make landfall, halfway across the world in San Francisco. He watches with muted horror as the monster on the screen rips apart concrete and metal like cooked spaghetti and hopes that everyone over there is alright.When he is sixteen, the kaiju attack Sydney. When he wakes in a sterile white hospital room, the beeping of the heart monitor the only sound he hears beside his own breathing, he knows, somehow, that his parents are gone. His friends are gone, his city is gone.It is then and there that he vows revenge on the monster which destroyed his life.





	You only get what you grieve

**Author's Note:**

> title from Fall Out Boy's "Stay Frosty Royal Milk Tea" (don't look at me like that, I didn't pick the title)
> 
> the premise of this: can you imagine the angst that comes from sw x pacific rim

**i.**

Obi-Wan Kenobi is thirteen when the kaiju first make landfall, halfway across the world in San Francisco. He watches with muted horror as the monster on the screen rips apart concrete and metal like cooked spaghetti and hopes that everyone over there is alright.

When he is sixteen, the kaiju attack Sydney. When he wakes in a sterile white hospital room, the beeping of the heart monitor the only sound he hears beside his own breathing, he knows, somehow, that his parents are gone. His friends are gone, his city is gone.

It is then and there that he vows revenge on the monster which destroyed his life.

* * *

**ii.**

Qui-Gon Jinn is unlike any other pilot he’s ever met. The man is built for power and violence, and yet his mind is a quiet and peaceful place. Sometimes Obi-Wan wonders why he is here among the rest of them who carry hatred in their veins and revenge in their minds, because the man seems to be so content with where he is and how the world is.

Obi-Wan just wants to set the kaiju on fire and send them back into the hellhole they crawled out of.

Then they drift together, and oh, does Obi-Wan understand that particular brand of self-loathing and that need to protect. It is the very same one he feels the first moment after waking and the last thing he knows before he falls asleep every night.

When they emerge, LOCCENT announces they’ve beat the current record for longest non-combat Drift ever. Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon just look at each other, eyes dark with knowledge and a desire to protect those weaker than them.

Qui-Gon looks at him.

“Who did you lose?”

Obi-Wan stiffens, before sighing.

“Everyone I know. Sydney, the first time.”

Then, after a few moments of silence, “Who was it, for you?”

“My best friend, and my student. They were both in San Francisco.”

And for a moment, they are just two grieving souls, mourning those who were lost because they were weak.

They make a vow, that day. A vow to protect everyone they can, for as long as they still breathe, because the kaiju will stop at nothing to destroy them.

* * *

**iii.**

Qui-Gon is an unconventional partner – they ditch the usual plasma cannon for lighter artillery and shed some of the protective casing on the nuclear reactor in exchange for – well, wings would be the best word for it. Their fighting style is acrobatic, with great leaps and midair twists, and the lightweight metal extensions catch the upward breezes and lift them into the sky to rain down destruction upon the water-bound kaiju below. After their first fight, their Jaeger is dubbed “Vortex Glory”, and the name sticks.

They successfully defend Sydney and the surrounding area from attack four more times before they are asked to head to Hong Kong to help defend the Miracle Mile there. Phantom Omega, Vos and Tachi, are down for the count. They’d overextended themselves in their last battle, and now Vos is hospitalized and unlikely to make a full recovery for several weeks. Broken collarbones are a nasty business, and Tachi has an impressive spread of bruises on her arms. Windu and Gallia are also stationed at the Hong Kong Shatterdome, and Eden Luna stands in the hangar next to Vortex Glory.

In Hong Kong, Obi-Wan learns what it feels like to truly enjoy himself. The city is vibrant, churning with life like Sydney had, before the kaiju, before everything. He and Qui-Gon explore the city in their free time and Obi-Wan loves it. Loves this, loves being alive, loves where he is.

The kaiju make another attack a month later. Eden Luna is dead in the water, something to do with this kaiju’s ability to short out the electronics in the Conn-Pod. It seems to be a one time ability though, and Vortex Glory presses the attack.

They’re flipping through the air gloriously, as they always do. Two bodies, one mind, one beautiful piece of machinery, and the weight of millions of lives pressing down on their shoulders.

Then the tail whips around, and oh, _no one had clear visuals on that tail_ , _it’s not supposed to have spikes_ and _we don’t have the armor for it, chain sword, chain sword_ – !

And oh, _oh_ , he thought Sydney was bad.

Glass shattering around him, and someone screaming, but all he can see are Qui-Gon’s blue, blue eyes as he falls, but he’s also the one falling, and all he feels around him is dark and pain and rushing water and he’s clutching uselessly at the controls in the pod, the co-pilot seat next to him hanging emptily. Red lights are flashing, but there is also nothing but darkness and the bright, electric blue of kaiju blood.

He’s not sure if he’s still alive or if he’s down there, in the dark, with nothing but water and pain, and slowly but surely, his lungs fill with water, and he drowns.

* * *

**iv.**

“Stay calm, Obi-Wan,” someone tells him as he swims up towards consciousness. “Just, stay calm, please.”

There’s something wrong with him, he knows it. Something, if only he could remember what it was. He opens his eyes, and Mace’s concerned face is looking down at him. The man looks much the worse for wear; his right arm is in a cast and there’s a white patch of gauze taped above his right eyebrow. Beside him, Adi looks distraught, and the left side of her face is a mess of shiny scar tissue.

Mace, and Adi. Eden Luna’s back.

_Where’s Qui-Gon?_

He pokes at the space where their Drift-bond sits and is instead greeted by a vast flood of pain and fear and memory and oh, he’s still alive.

He’s not the one who died. Qui-Gon is dead, drowned, lost to the ocean and its waves.

He wants to scream. He wants to wail out his loss for the whole world to hear. He wants to punch something.

He does none of those things.

He listens blankly as the doctors go through their checkup, and Mace and Adi whisper their hurried goodbyes.

The doctors tell him that they’re not sure why he’s still alive. They tell him that his co-pilot’s body could not be found. They tell him that he’s the second person alive to pilot solo and live to tell the tale.

They tell him that he’ll have to keep taking medicine to control his body’s reaction to the neural overload he was subject to in those few, horrible moments after Qui-Gon was pulled from the saddle. They tell him that while he was alone in the pod, he managed to deploy the chain sword and slice the kaiju (they’re dubbing it Maul now, because of its unusual viciousness and the tail) cleanly in half. They tell him that he somehow managed to move Vortex back to shore before collapsing. They tell him that the crews are doing cleanup in the harbor and have been for the week he’s been out.

They tell him that with time, the Drift-bond will disappear.

He’s not sure he’s ready for that. He’s not sure if he’ll ever be ready for that, because the constant echoing loss inside his head is an acute reminder of how weak he was.

* * *

**v.**

Whispers follow his footsteps, now. The whole Shatterdome is abuzz with the newest gossip.

“That’s Ranger Kenobi, the one who took down Maul single-handedly!”

“That’s him? I thought he’d be taller.”

“Man, does he look terrible. Is that how it feels to lose your co-pilot?”

“I heard they weren’t just co-pilots though. Haven’t you heard what Drifting does to people?”

“You mean, they were –  y’know?”

He has _fans_ , who adore him because he’s the second person to solo pilot. He hasn’t spoken a word in days, and he’s pretty sure that if he threw another thing at the wall he would be banned from their rooms, permanently. His rooms, now.

Some days he stands on the top of the Shatterdome (because no one goes up there, not now, when there’s so much to do below) and looks down.

It’s a beautiful view from the top, all bright, glittering city and dazzling, glistening water as far as the eye can see.

Sometimes he looks down at the concrete landing platform, far below, and wonders what would happen if he tipped forward just so.

Would anyone really care?

 _Qui-Gon would_ , his mind whispers.

But Qui-Gon Jinn is dead, and he is alone.

* * *

**vi.**

Slowly, but methodically, he begins to piece himself back together. He begins to eat again, to go through the motions of living. He begins to use his words to communicate once more, and one day he can even walk by Vortex Glory without crying.

He knows that he will never step foot in it again. Not after everything that has happened.

One morning, Marshal Yoda summons him to his office, high up in the building.

“Change, time it is, for you, hm?”

“Yes, Marshal. Where am I going?”

“The Academy, your next position is. Teach the young ones, you will.”

“Yes, Marshal.”

He leaves on a helicopter the next morning and never once looks back.


End file.
